MediaWatch: July 1991
Table of Contents:
Liberals Admit Media Errors
FRAC FLACKS. In April, MediaWatch reported on a dubious child hunger study by the left-wing Food Research and Action Center (FRAC). Mickey Kaus of The New Republic called it "crap." Dan Rather began the March 27 CBS Evening News: "A startling number of American children are in danger of starving." Boston Globe reporter Stephen Kurkjian insisted the study demonstrated one child in eight "goes hungry every day."
In a June 27 Christian Science Monitor profile of the Media Research Center, FRAC Executive Director Robert Fersh agreed that these two reports were wrong: the study made no claims about starvation and concluded only that one in eight children had been hungry at least once during a 12-month period. Fersh added: "I wasn't asked much [by reporters] to clarify it." Kurkjian told the Monitor: "It never entered my mind that they weren't hungry every day," conceding his "inattention" to the facts of the story.
Despite this, ABC promoted the claims on June 3. But while FRAC suggested 5.5 million children were "hungry," Jennings more than doubled that number in a June 18 report, saying 12 million children "do not have enough to eat."
